Category Archives: Storytelling

Does Point of View (POV) terrify you? Thank all those critics and teachers who don’t know anything about being creative yet told you countless “rules.” POV is actually quite straightforward, though some individual POVs may be more challenging to write than others. #WritingTipspic.twitter.com/1DDiqCy0a4

Don’t confuse POV with things that have nothing to do with POV: writing in past or present tense, using flashbacks or foreshadowing, good character development or realistic dialogue. None of those is POV and POV is not concerned with those separate writing issues.#WritingTips

Don’t confuse literary Point of View with people expressing different opinions in real life: in writing, different characters’ views of the same events is Perspective, not POV. Point of View is HOW something is written, and there are very few POVs in writing. #WritingTips

Unlimited POV is the only one that has absolutely no limits to the information an author presents to his reader, hence its name. Author reveals EVERY character’s thoughts, feelings, motivations, past, although not always at the same time. The easiest POV to master.#WritingTips

Unlimited POV is generally considered “reliable,” i.e., you can “trust” the story as it is presented to you (though some things may still be open to interpretation). This POV is generally considered to reflect the authors’ view of their characters. A very popular POV#WritingTips

Multiple perspectives can be presented in Unlimited POV w/o changing POV, as @GRRMspeaking does in his Game of Thrones books. Each section/chapter reveals events from a different character’s perspective, but all the characters’ feelings are revealed in each section.#WritingTips

Unlimited Point of View
• written in grammatical 3rd person: he, she, it, they
• the ONLY unlimited POV = no limits to information author gives to readers
• can show different characters’ perspectives without changing POV
• easiest to write
• easiest to read #WritingTips

Creating realistic characters is one of the most challenging things writers have to master. Are your characters flat, round, evolving, static (traditional character classifications)? All you have to do is create realistic people in your work (automatically = round) #WritingTipspic.twitter.com/0WTLJzKG8E

A round character is a “real” human being, with both negative & positive traits. Give all your characters both traits. Remember: some traits can be interpreted both ways. Sticking to something can be called both stubborn (negative) & persistence (positive). #WritingTips

If you like your characters, it’s easier to make them realistic, which is one of the reasons protagonists are often more developed than antagonists. If you can’t find anything to like about a character, figure out what the other characters like about him/her & use it#WritingTips

Some writing teachers insist that a character MUST change (evolve) from the beginning to the end of the work. If the character’s NOT changing sends a political, metaphorical, or symbolic message, their not changing may be key to realism. Protagonists usually change.#WritingTips

One of best ways to ensure you have realistic characters is to let them live their own lives. Don’t force them to make the same decisions you’ve made: they’re not you. Regard characters as you do your children/spouse/friends: you cannot control them. Don’t even try.#WritingTips

Know everything about each character’s past by the time you FINISH the book. You can write past out beforehand (outline) or discover it as you write. Other characters may know things you don’t. Scatter HINTS or glimpses, not big blocks, of character’s past throughout#WritingTips

To Create Realistic Characters
• make them “round” with both good & bad traits
• like them or know why other characters like them
• let them live their own lives, not yours
• know their entire past by the time you finish book & scatter hints of past throughout#WritingTipspic.twitter.com/8KJd6P3qbu

If you’re not a fan of Elmore Leonard, you should be. He’s one of the best storytellers around, renowned for his gritty realism, his succinct and highly memorable dialogue, his intense characters, and conflicts that turn audience expectations upside-down and backward before rolling those expectations down a steep hill. Twenty-six of Leonard’s stories and novels have been turned into films or television series, and you can always pick out the original dialogue because, as he memorably quipped, “if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it” and “I try to leave out the parts that readers skip” (Ten Rules of Writing).

Whether you’re a fan of his early Westerns or his later crime fiction, you can never go wrong reading one of Elmore Leonard’s pieces of fiction or watching one of the dramatic adaptations of his work. “Edgy” and “unexpected” are probably two of the best adjectives to describe his fiction, although he’d no doubt object to my using so many adjectives, since he was famous for describing his characters as little as possible, letting their dialogue and their actions reveal all that was essential in their natures.

Based on the novel of the same name by Elmore Leonard, Hombre (1967), the film is everything you’d expect from Elmore Leonard, but nothing you’d typically expect from Hollywood, espcially in the 1960s. If you were to see the advertisement, you’d think it was just another white man raised by Indians trying to return to white society where nobody wants him kind of movie. “Ah, yes,” wrote Roger Ebert in his original review of the film, “we know the characters well from a thousand other Westerns”:

The good but indecisive Mexican, the decisive but bad Mexican, the thieving Indian agent, his cultured wife, the desperado, the lady boarding house operator with a heart of gold, and the Kid.

While those are, indeed, some of characters in this story, Hombre goes far beyond the Western tropes and clichés to become an examination of morality, human nature, and the struggle to survive.

Some critics call Hombre a “revisionist Western” because it shows Indians — or, at least, a white man who was raised by Indians — in a way that’s different from the shrieking savages riding circles around burning covered wagons that Hollywood typically portrayed. But the film is not really interested in the conflict between the races, although racism certainly is a significant part of the characters’ natures and contributes to many of the film’s conflicts. Instead, Hombre is about human conflict, no matter the race, the gender, or the age of the character. And that’s what makes this film a classic.

Hombre opens with a blue-eyed Indian (Paul Newman) and a band of fellow Apaches patiently waiting for a group of horses to come down to a waterhole, which they have fenced off in order to capture them.

When John Russell goes to see Mendez (Martin Balsam), a half-Mexican, half-white stage driver, he tells Russell that his adopted father has died and left him a boarding house that actually makes money. Mendez encourages Russell to “accept” his own half-white heritage and take ownership of the boarding house, which would make his life easier. Mendez also encourages Russell to cut his hair so that other whites will accept him more easily.

Jessie (Diane Cilento) even tosses her sheriff-boyfriend Frank (Cameron Mitchell) out of her bed, sending him back to his own room in the boarding house, since she isn’t sure how the new owner will take such “immoral” relations. She gets the house ready for John Russell’s arrival, even polishing the silver, causing Mendez to laugh, telling her that Russell “eats with his fingers,” so she’s going through a lot of work for nothing.

Russell doesn’t want the silver because he doesn’t even want the boarding house. He intends to sell it, leaving Jessie out of a place to live and of an income. After she attempts to convince her boyfriend — Sheriff Frank — to marry her, she decides it’s time to leave and start a new life somewhere else.

At the station, two other boarding house residents are also waiting to leave so they can start a new life: the Kid, whose name is Billy, and his wife Doris (Margaret Blye), who apparently married Billy to escape a brutal, unhappy life with her father, only to have an equally unhappy life with her new husband. She believes if they start their life somewhere else, their relations will improve, and Billy hasn’t much choice except to go along with her.

While this group is waiting for the stage’s departure, an obviously wealthy woman (Barbara Rush) and her older husband (Fredric March) come into the station. When Mendez informs them that they cannot hire the stage to get to their destination in three days, Mrs Favor buys the stage, horses and all, to ensure that she and Favor are able to make their trip.

Later that night, the Bad Guy (Richard Boone) comes into the station and insists on taking one of the passengers’ places on the stage. After he intimidates an army officer into giving up his seat, he joins the rest of the passengers on a journey that, rather than being merely the trope of strangers on a journey in a stagecoach who are forced to form a community, albeit a temporary one, becomes, instead, a journey that will show the racial, cultural, and economic tensions that divide everyone in the group.

When the stage driver Mendez attempts to go a different route to avoid three strangers that he fears are highwaymen who want to rob the passengers, the group is attacked by some people they never expected to fear. Stranded in the desert with the money the outlaws want, they attempt to return to the town they left. The outlaws, who have a hostage and some of the water, follow the group, willing to kill any and all of them for the fortune they stole from the stage.

As if an abundant stolen fortune and a serious lack of water in the desert weren’t enough for a group of clashing personalities to deal with, the group members turn on each other for every reason imaginable, revealing the greed, misogyny, racism, and elitism that makes this Western more than a cowboys vs. Indians, white men vs. non-white men, good vs. evil tale. Virtually everyone in this story is selfish and ugly, everyone wants something he can’t have without hurting someone else, and everyone seems ready to betray everyone else in order to survive.

Hombre is an “excellent example of how violence is more effective the less it’s used,” and the emotional and cultural violence is more important to the story than any of the physical violence, most of which, including the murders, is not graphic. With outstanding performances by Newman (John Russell/Hombre), Boone (Bad Guy), and Cilento (Jessie), Hombre‘s messages are far more brutal than its shootouts.

Urgency is what keeps the reader turning pages. Urgency can be in plot, character development, or Voice (best is all three). Learn plot Urgency first because it forms the skeleton of your book.#WritingTips

Your fiction must have conflict or readers will put it down, complaining that nothing happens. If you write an outline beforehand, the plot is what's in the outline. If you don't use outlines, it's when you say, "What happens next?" #WritingTips

Start with the event that knocks the protagonist's world off its axis. This is the first major conflict, and your protagonist should be forever changed by what happens in this initial conflict.#WritingTips

Conflict needs to increase in the book, leading to some final conflict. If you're writing a series, then the conflicts also need to increase across the entire series as well as in each individual book. #WritingTips

Better to allude to backstory by having protagonist and other characters base their behavior on it during conflict. Readers will interpret the characters' behavior themselves, and your readers will be more attached to your characters.#WritingTips

Once you understand the concept of Urgency, especially plot Urgency, then you can concentrate on how to tell a good story. If you're a good storyteller, you probably know it. People have told you, or they stand entranced, listening to you. #WritingTips

All of us tell stories all the time, but not all of us are good at it. Each time someone asks, "What happened to you today?" and you answer, you're telling a story. Practice until you get good at storytelling. People will want to listen to you.#WritingTips

Tell stories to children and to strangers: they don't care enough about you to be polite and pretend to be interested. Practice telling stories until you get really good at it. That's an essential skill for a writer. Practice every chance you get. #WritingTips

Practice telling jokes, telling stories to strangers in the grocery or bank, telling bedtime stories to children, etc. There are so many opportunities to tell stories to others. Practice until you know from your audience that you're good at it. Then do it in writing.#WritingTips

It's the storyteller's responsibility to maintain his audience's interest, not the obligation of the audience to listen to the story or to read the book. If you don't believe that, just take a glance at some of the customer reviews on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.#WritingTips

If you've never seen a master storyteller at work, then you should look around for videos of some people who do it well. Master storytellers combine character development, dialogue, and plot Urgency into one neat unit.#WritingTips

I'm guessing that you already know some people who are good storytellers. Analyze what they do to keep audience enthralled. That's what you want to do: keep you audience hanging on every word (or turning pages). #WritingTips

Once you understand what conflict and plot Urgency is, and you know how to tell a good story, you need to master the genre you want to write in. That means you have to read your own genre as well as others.#WritingTips

If you read nothing but your own genre, you won't really know what's expected in that genre, nor what's original and unique. You should read everything you can get your hands on, no matter what genre it is. Become an informed reader. #WritingTips

When you read books, read for more than the plot and what happens: look carefully at character development, dialogue, etc. Learn what works in well written books, no matter the genre. (HINT: bestsellers are not always well written.)#WritingTips

You need to be aware of every variation in your proposed genre, whether it be fantasy, romance, literary fiction, action-adventure, etc. You need to bring something unique to your book and the genre to be successful. #WritingTips

You have to tell a story that no one else has already told. That basically means that you have to be unique in telling your version of the story events. (Don't be discouraged by people who claim there are only 3-4 stories in the world…) #WritingTips

The necessity to be unique when telling or writing your fiction is why you have to know your own genre. Know what's out there. Know what your audience expects. Be aware also of your own expectations for the genre.#WritingTips

If you really want to be successful, write your book for someone who doesn't want to read about your topic or in your genre. If you can tell a story well enough to get that person interested, it'll be even more interesting to people who like the genre. #WritingTips

Before you start writing a book, you need to master Urgency, especially plot Urgency (which is what happens) = conflict. You need to become a good storyteller, orally first if necessary, and then in writing. Then you need to master your genre by reading ALL genres. #WritingTips

Start your story with the conflict that knocks your protagonist's world off its axis. You can begin the story after the event has happened, but the protagonist should be forever unmoored from his former self by this event.#WritingTips

The protagonist is whoever or whatever story is about (it doesn't have to be a human), and antagonist (human or not) is who or what causes conflict. There can be multiple antagonists causing conflict with any protagonist. #WritingTips

Your story can also have multiple protagonists, but some will be more important than others. These will become the major characters: the rest will become minor, no matter how fully developed they are.#WritingTips

The more complex and complicated your story and its plot, the clearer you have to maintain focus on your protagonist or your readers will not be able to follow the story. Think Scarlett in Gone With the Wind: the massive story revolves around her.#WritingTips

Urgency is what keeps the reader turning pages. Urgency can be in plot (conflict), character development, Voice. In any first draft, you should concentrate on plot Urgency since you can add character development and Voice later.#WritingTips

Any time you set a story in a post-apocalyptic world, you already have Man vs Nature and Man vs Man, just because of limited resources. The major conflicts in those stories involve getting hold of limited resources in order to survive#WritingTips

To tell a good story, you must have conflict, and the conflicts must increase in intensity over the book to maintain reader interest. If you're writing a series, the conflicts must increase in each book as well as across entire series.#WritingTips

It is the writer's job to maintain reader interest in the story being told, not the reader's job to stay interested. Writers have much more competition than they did in previous centuries, and even more just in the last decade since e-books & Indie publishing#WritingTips

Not every reader is going to like the story you tell, but someone will like it. To tell the best story you can, imagine yourself writing for someone who might not be interested in the topic or genre. This will make you tell a better story.#WritingTips

If you can capture and maintain the interest of readers who think they wouldn't like that story, because of genre, tropes, setting, etc, then fans of that type of story will like it even more. This is the essence of good storytelling#WritingTips

Start with event that knocks protagonist's world off axisConcentrate on plot Urgency (conflict)Increase conflict through work (and across entire series if there is more than one book in your story)#WritingTips

Write for an audience that will not necessarily be interested in the type of story you're writing and keep that audience interested.Ditch chunks of backstory: it stalls story's forward momentum. Make things happen in your story.#WritingTips

You can write an entire story without backstory. Use hints or make the protagonists react according to his own backstory. Readers will understand. If you don't tell readers what a character's motivations are, readers will come up with own interpretations. #WritingTips

You don't have to control everything that happens in your story: you just have to tell it well. Let characters live own lives. It's perfectly acceptable if your characters are NOT you or anyone you know. They are allowed to surprise you by doing something "new."#WritingTips

Telling a good story is the basis of every good book. What happens in the story is the plot, and the more Urgency (conflict) a plot has, the more it will capture readers' attention because they'll want to know what happens. #WritingTips

Don't put blocks of setting in where nothing happens: make the characters interact with the setting to make it effective. Setting is more than just nature or rooms in a house. All of society, religion, culture = setting in a story.#WritingTips

Every single word of dialogue must be essential to your story: it must reveal characters' nature, relationship, history together, & any conflict they're having. If dialogue can be skipped or skimmed without the reader's missing something important, take dialogue out#WritingTips

Practice telling stories orally before you tell them in writing. Tell stories to children or to strangers: neither group will feel morally obligated to hide their boredom or to not walk away from you if the story's not interesting enough to keep their attention.#WritingTips

Become a "consicous" storyteller, one who's aware of what makes a good story (plot Urgency = conflict, and protagonist's character development). Be aware of your audience when orally telling stories. Practice until you can see that they're hooked on your story.#WritingTips

Once you become good at oral storytelling, it takes another skill-set to become good at written storytelling. It takes much practice and patience. Be aware of good storytelling techniques in books you read and learn from them.#WritingTips

You cannot be a good storyteller unless you understand what makes a good story. When you become more conscious of other storytellers' techniques (Urgency in plot and character development, for example), you will improve your own ability to tell a good story.#WritingTips

As always, my Lovelies, these are tips, not rules. Take what you can use and leave the rest. Keep practicing, become conscious of good storytelling techniques, and then go knock your protagonist's world off its axis to see what happens to him/her.#WritingTips

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My Most Fave Bloggers & Authors

Rachel in the OC
by CSA survivor and advocate Rachel Thompson, on surviving, preventing, and spreading the word about Childhood Sexual Abuse

Migraine Mantras
articles on migraine, chronic pain, chronic illness, holistic health, alternative medicine, exercise, mindfulness, and meditation, all written by people who live with invisible illness and who advocate for themselves and others

Lydia Schoch
one of the best blogs with an amazing variety of topics, from the Zen of medical tests to her weekly Suggestion Saturdays and Saturday Seven, which feature fascinating blogs and websites

The Bloggess
by bestselling author Jenny Lawson, on depression, marriage, lawn-gerbils, and other random absurdities of life

BrainPickings
one of the most diligently researched blogs I've ever found, written by Maria Popova, it covers writers, artists, books, and all things wonderfully intellectual and artistic

Historical, People & Fiction

Mimi Matthews
a marvelous blog on all things Victorian, from clothes and pets to personalities and other authors who write books and blogs on the same time period

A Writer's Perspectiveby April Munday, with well-researched posts on all things Medieval, from the weight of armor and the mobility of the knights wearing it to what peasants really ate and how they got betrothed and married

Barking Up The Wrong Treeby Eric Barker, with researched posts on living your life better with the principles of meditation, Stoicism, and mindfulness, and more

Raptitudeby David Cain, with an emphasis on meditation, mindfulness, and living life more fully

Elaine Mansfield
with a tagline "Grief is a Sacred Journey," this blog poignantly discusses grieving, mindfulness, Buddhism, and beginning life again after tragedy makes you think it's ended

Writing, Publishing, Marketing

Bad Redhead Media
also run by Rachel Thompson, with an emphasis on helping writers and other small business owners master social media

Red Pen of Doom
by speechwriter and author Guy Bergstrom, who posts on everything writing, to help screenwriters, novelists, and journalists, along with great Red-Pen-skewering of books and videos, as well as frequent instructions on how to survive an apocalypse

Anne R Allen
by authors Anne R. Allen and Ruth Harris, with an emphasis on posts to help writers with everything from writing the first draft to revising, from self-publishing and marketing to social media and handling reviews

Writing and Wellness
by Colleen M. Story, and frequently featuring guest posts by authors, this blog covers everything concerning writers and their health, psychological and physical, from easing back pain to increasing creativity

A Writer's Ramblings
by Victoria Griffin, this blog covers everything writing, from first drafts and revisions to editing

Terry Tyler
by an author for other authors and writers, with an emphasis on posts to help writers with everything from writing, revising, and social media

Sheri McInnis
by a traditionally and Indie published author who is also a book coach, with posts on everything for writers, from agents to addiction

My Most Fave Podcast

Sleep With Me Podcast
written by Drew Ackerman, and performed by Drew as "Dearest Scooter," this brilliant and popular podcast knocks out insomnia by lulling you to sleep with meandering introductions and ingeniously "boring" stories. Drew and Scooter also do the Game of Drones and Sleep to Strange podcasts

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